Wonderwall

Tom Cruise Breaks Silence on Katie Holmes Divorce

The Hollywood Reporter -- Tom Cruise has opened up for the first time about his split with Katie Holmes, telling German television he was got blindsided when Holmes filed for divorce after five years of marriage.

"I didn't expect that," Cruise told TV entertainment magazine Taff during an interview to promote his latest film, Oblivion, in Germany. "Life is a challenge. To be 50 and have experiences and think you have everything under control, and then it hits you &mdash that's what life is. &hellip Life is tragicomic. You need a certain sense of humor."

Cruise said he has had "an incredible amount of time to reflect" on life after the breakup, in which Holmes received custody of their daughter, Suri. The actor eventually turned the TV interview back toward the promotion of Oblivion, going on in length about "whitewater rafting and snowmobiling" in Iceland on the shoot of the sci-fi actioner, which co-stars Morgan Freeman and Olga Kurylenko.

It is notable that Cruise decided to open up about his personal life in Germany, a country where Scientology often is viewed with great suspicion. The Church's most prominent spokesman, however, remains a huge star in Germany. His public image was given a major boost in the country following the release of Bryan Singer's World War II drama Valkyrie (2008), in which Cruise plays Claus von Stauffenberg, the man who led an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.